46 



THE GAME BREEDER 



Others will tell you of greater numbers 

 reared, but the principal point I wish to 

 make is that the natural shyness of the 

 quail can be overcome when they are 

 reared quietly with bantam hens within 

 sight of passers-by. 



To-day we have some of these com- 



panionable birds which were reared un- 

 der the terrace of Rockwood Hall, being 

 fed daily from a certain window of the 

 house, and they are so tame that they 

 show no alarm when the grain rattles 

 down on their backs. 



HOW WE RAISED 500 QUAIL 



By Malcolm Dunn. 



There is no reason to my mind why 

 quail cannot be raised profitably, but they 

 should be by themselves, and not where 

 there are a lot of pheasants in process 

 of rearing. You can give better atten- 

 tion to them under such conditions. Last 

 year we hatched out 600 and raised 500. 

 I consider that good. The main thing is 

 to feed light and not to overcrowd. 



In the spring of 1913 the New Jersey 

 Game Commission received a shipment 

 of quail from Oklahoma. We put twen- 

 ty-five pairs in small movable pens and 

 ten pairs in a pen one hundred feet 

 square. They began to lay the last week 

 in May. We got forty-six eggs from 

 one pair. Some of them did not lay at 

 all. We gathered the eggs once a week 

 and always left two eggs in the nest. We 

 tried taking all the eggs away from 

 some, but we soon found out it paid to 

 leave some in the nest, as when we took 

 all the eggs away it stopped the laying 

 for approximately a week. We put the 

 eggs under small bantams, and when 

 they hatched out, after twenty-four 

 hours, we placed them in a field as we do 

 young pheasants. We found out that 



the birds do much better if each brood 

 is kept separate. We start feeding them 

 with a custard — three eggs to a cup of 

 milk. We use this for a day or two, 

 then we feed a mixture of seeds, Spratts, 

 chick grain, canary seed, ant eggs, and 

 green food. We feed every three hours 

 until a week old. 



We raised 350 in 1913 and last year 

 we raised 500. In the winter we put 

 them in a large pen so they will have 

 lots of room. The secret is to have pens 

 enough to keep moving them into fresh 

 ground. 



The ten pairs we put in the large pen 

 started laying sooner than those in the 

 small pens, but we did not get so many 

 eggs from them. Therefore, we think it 

 best to pair them off in the small coops. 

 We hatched quite a number out in the 

 incubators,' then put them with the ban- 

 tams that hatched out. They did all 

 right. We leave the birds out in the 

 field until half grown before we put them 

 in the pens. All the surplus cock birds 

 and those we did not need for breeders 

 were put out through different parts of 

 the State. 



